Hi everyone! Apparently 'tis the season for Zelda music. Hopefully you all have had the chance to listen to the bonus CD that came with Skyward Sword, or some of the various fan projects that have cropped up recently! Since Zelda arrangements seem to be quite popular this season, we've decided we would like to add a present under your holiday Deku Tree and let you listen to another preview from Twilight Symphony before things get too crazy for the rest of the year. Listen as you read on!



The preview isn't exactly festive, so we apologize if it puts you out of your holiday music mood.. But we do hope that you are able to see the range of emotions that is apparent in the album when you compare this with past previews. Of course, all synthesized choir is only temporary, and these mixes aren't necessarily finalized yet!

We're going to be doing our monthly previews at the top of each month now, rather than towards the end, which seems to make more sense. We're putting the finishing touches on the last of the arrangements! Stay tuned for more project updates!

I took the liberty of typing out some of the most relevant questions we were asked during our Q&A segment we hosted earlier today. If you want to find out our answers to the other questions that were asked (a lot of them are random), you can check out the full video recording of the stream here. You can actually see a list of all of the questions we received, and jump to that specific spot in the video by clicking on it! Thanks again to everyone who came out to watch us live and for participating! We hope that you feel like you were able to connect with us as individuals rather than mysterious people running a website. :)

Hop inside for some answers.

Update: A condensed transcript of the event will be created so you do not have to go through the entire two and a half hours of video to find out what we discussed. :)

This month, we're going to be trying something a little bit different. Later today, we will be hosting a LIVE video stream on VOKLE to share information about Twilight Symphony, and answer questions directly from members of the audience. The stream will be starting at approximately 7pm ET (4pm PT). The video will be recorded and available to watch after the show has ended. Hope to see you there!

*Note: Navigate to this post's page before joining the event.

We're back this month with a new preview from Twilight Symphony! This time, you'll be able to hear two more solo instrumentalists performing: Marc Papeghin on french horn, and David Ramos (Docjazz4) on ocarina! Please listen without further ado. See if you can name all of the tracks!


While you're listening to that, we'll give you some quick updates about the project. Completion of the sheet music for the choir is well under way, and the final arrangements for the album are also getting close to being done. At the rate we're currently working at, it's looking like we're about to surpass our original length estimations by a little bit, bringing our estimated length of the entire album to approximately three hours. That's a lot of music! We're really excited to be this much closer to releasing the whole project. If you're curious about where we'll be recording the choir for the project, check out the newly launched website for the absolutely gorgeous Pianella Studios!


Just as a reminder, we'd like to mention that we're still accepting donations for the project up until the choir recording date (TBA). Doing so will reward you with some awesome incentives, which can be found listed on the donate page.

One last thing to quickly add in: Those of you who are attending PAX Prime this coming weekend have the opportunity to meet up with some members of the ZREO Team and Staff! We're looking at scheduling a specific time and place to meet up with fans and hand out some cool swag! We haven't picked when and where yet, but make sure you're following us on Facebook or Twitter so you know exactly what's happening. Speaking of Facebook, our page is nearing 10K fans! Thanks to all of you for sending us your support!

We hope everyone had a terrific summer! Check back soon for rehtona etadpu!

Hey all! Hope you're having a great summer!

First off, this post is directed at all of our new fans who have only recently found the site, and are a little unsure of what is all going on. We're not releasing any new content at this time. We're simply summarizing what's happened in the last year, and hopefully eliminating some of the questions people have relating to our project. If you're a fan who reads every word we post on the site, this will be a good recap for you!

As you might have already found out, Zelda Reorchestrated is a fan project dedicated to creating orchestral arrangements of the greatest songs from The Legend of Zelda. Over the years, we have reorchestrated over 270 tracks, including the entire Ocarina of Time soundtrack and music from 14 other games, all of which are available to download freely from our website. Our dedication to Zelda music has brought us coast-to-coast, attending VGXPO '09, and E3 2010-2011. ZREO has been shared and enjoyed by tens of hundreds of thousands of people around the world, and it is our goal to continue sharing our passion with fans as our skills grow and develop as rising musicians.

In Spring of 2008, production began on our most ambitious project to date, which later became known under the name "Project Maranello." All details were kept under wraps from the public until shortly before E3 2010, when we started teasing fans with images of a map of Hyrule. As the weeks went by, the map revealed new parts of it which had been previously darkened out and unable to be read. Finally we released a video unveiling Twilight Symphony (TPS) to the world.

Further details were held off until earlier this year when we released 8 minutes total of previews from various songs on the album. The first preview was posted exclusively on the game music enthusiast site Original Sound Version, while the second preview was exclusive to gaming news behemoth Destructoid. These previews were the first real inside looks at what Twilight Symphony is all about.

In the same announcement, we also began a bold Kickstarter campaign to fundraise money to hire a professional Hollywood choir for Twilight Symphony. Within weeks we flew past our original goal of $18,000 and ended our campaign a month later with a grand total of $24,194. We announced that we would be hiring legendary Recording Engineer John Kurlander as well as Vocal Contractor, Arranger and Choir Conductor Tim Davis to be our recording specialists for the TPS choir.

Not long after our Kickstarter, we posted a 10-minute preview of Twilight Symphony on the site. It was announced that Aubrey Ashburn would be featured as a soloist for the album. Our most recent update (found below this post) features two previews from TPS arranger Tim Stoney.

Donors who contribute to Twilight Symphony before the choir recording date (TBA) will still be eligible to receive rewards. To donate, visit the donation page, where you will also find a complete list of all incentives. If you can't contribute financially, the best way you can still help is to spread the word! Invite your friends to join our ZREO Facebook Page, or follow us on Twitter @zreomusic!

The flash player below contains all previews which have been released throughout the last year. They have been split apart and individually labeled so you can easily choose the ones you want to listen to! Thanks once again to all of our fans and supporters! Stay tuned for more updates!

DISCLAIMER

These clips, in some cases, are works-in-progress and may not represent the final intended quality. Also be aware that songs included in this preview are cropped and/or edited for preview purposes and come from much longer, developed versions. Most of these clips represent unfinished mixes and non-final renders, where sampled instruments are used. Sampled choir is just temporary!! ;) If and when you hear a sampled solo vocal, that solo is either currently being recorded by a live vocalist (Aubrey Ashburn), or it has already been recorded but simply not included in the preview.

Hi folks! We're in the middle of making some changes and upgrades to the website. We're hoping to be completely done fixing things within the next couple of days, so if you see something that doesn't look right or is missing, know that we're working on getting it taken care of!

~ebuch

Hi, my name is Tim Stoney and I've been on the Twilight Symphony Team for a little over a year now. I met ZREO Team member Leonard Cheung at the University of Surrey where I'm studying Creative Music Technology. I play the trumpet and piano, and as you could have guessed, have a massive passion for the music from The Legend of Zelda series. So, when the opportunity presented itself to join the Twilight Symphony Team (and subsequently ZREO), I couldn't say no.

This preview showcases two of my most Twilight Symphony assignments, "The Sages/Ganondorf's Execution" and "Throne Room" (working titles). At this stage in the process I'm focused on writing and working hard to integrate all of the original material in a cohesive and faithful way. The orchestra mix, as a result, isn't at all representative of what the final piece will sound like -- so listen kindly!

As you've probably gathered, our goal with Twilight Symphony is to not only breathe new life into the game's music, but also weave together the important story moments so that they play out in a fully realized, dramatic and timeless way -- fully intact. This has probably been one of the harder parts of the project, figuring out how to get from Point A to Point B to Point C in a long sequence of musical moments, as the music design of the game generally just crash edits from one piece to another. For the album, the game and its visuals won't be guiding you through the story -- so we're creating a presentation that, as fans, we feel really captures the essence of those moments. And of course, the focus is on the music. An example of this musical interweaving I've referred to can be found in the preview roughly 50 seconds in, where the "Puppet Zelda Battle" is at a climactic end, tapering off into the bit where Midna frees Zelda from Ganondorf's control.

While most of what's been done on ZREO in the past has been direct transcription work, a defining difference in Twilight Symphony is the idea of the music actually being arranged and crafted into something with a structure. The most exciting part about arranging rather than simply transcribing, for me, is the inherent compositional aspect that inevitably factors in. For Twilight Symphony, this means we're allowed some creative liberty to tweak, adjust, integrate, accentuate and massage musical elements relating to characters or locations whilst keeping true to the original style and intent so that the resulting piece tells a compelling story. You'll hear how I've sort of expanded on the original idea -- but not ventured away from it (that's important!). The excerpt from "The Sages/Ganondorf's Execution" in this preview shows just how much you can change a piece whilst keeping the original feel for it. As you may be able to tell, a lot of it has been re-harmonized to give Ganon's theme a much different feel and I think the mens' chants in this section work really well with the new harmonies to give Ganondorf a solid image (and I hope you all feel the same :D).

That said, I think the whole of TPS will grow to a much higher level of AWESOME when we record the choir, which I'm really looking forward to!

Working on something like Twilight Symphony has really given me the opportunity to express my own creativity but also adapt and refine my writing in the style of another musician. In the case, the venerable Koji Kondo, Toru Minegishi and Asuka Ota. Who would have thought just a year on this project would have taught me more, creatively, than my last 3-4 years of education? As a personal thanks, I'd like to express my appreciation to ZREO Team member Wayne Strange for guiding me through nearly every piece I've worked on, and also the rest of the Twilight Symphony Team their constant support!

Hey everyone! We're working as hard as ever on Twilight Symphony. We can't wait to start recording the choir! The level of support that has been shown by our fans is staggering and is what fuels each of us to strive to make the best Zelda music album ever made.

Since the ending of our Kickstarter fundraiser, (which raised us a total of $21,876.39 after Kickstarter and Amazon took their cuts, NOT after taxes), we've had many people messaging us about contributing to Twilight Symphony. We've decided to allow people to continue donating to Twilight Symphony using our donation page. All of the Kickstarter incentives for pledging certain amounts will be the same for donating through Paypal via the donate page. So if you or someone you know missed out on the Kickstarter fundraiser, there's still a chance to get your name on the physical CD, (among other incentives!).

We'd like to give a shout out to Julia Seeholzer at Berklee College of Music and head of the VGM Choir for recently joining the team to help streamline and expedite our choir prep process. As a result, we'll be going to the session over-prepared so that we can be sure and record as much as humanly possible!

Also, we're still looking for a couple more people to add to our mobile application team! If you know how to make apps and have some free time you'd be willing to dedicate, send me an email and I'll give you some more details and information.

Thanks again to everyone for continuing to support ZREO!

Hey folks! Earlier this month we released a substantial, highly exclusive preview to our Kickstarter backers. They got to hear it early. Today, as the clock ticks down and the final hours on our fundraising campaign come to a close, we have decided to share this with you as well. You've heard all of the other previews. Those were designed to tease. Now we're getting to some of the good stuff. As a celebration of the success we've experienced from Kickstarter, we're now giving YOU access to listen to this very special, early, 10-minute preview from Twilight Symphony.

What I personally hope you'll discover is what I've known since the very start: that Twilight Symphony is much more than just a "re-mix" project or a "re-arrangement" album. Heck, it even goes beyond ZREO's standard status quo. It's why we've been so secretive about it — up until now. Our passion for this music is deep and heartfelt, and our goal is to bring you the story of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, as you've truly never heard it before.

With that, I and the rest of the team hope you enjoy the preview. We hope that you LOVE IT. This is just a small taste of what's to come, representing the cumulative blood, sweat and tears of the Twilight Symphony team: Sam Ferrara, Wayne Strange, Tim Stoney, Eric Buchholz, Len Cheung and lastly myself. I encourage you to comment on this post, and also on the main Kickstarter wall. Spread the word, continue to hype the project and know that your support is greatly, genuinely appreciated. Don't forget, as of this post, with 8 hours left, you can still contribute. If you've already pledged, you still have time to raise your pledge level if you can or want! Either way, we're stoked that you're here and can't wait to share with you the fruits of our labor.

Sincerely,

Jeron Moore
Twilight Symphony, Producer

DISCLAIMER

The following clips, in some cases, are works-in-progress and may not represent the final intended quality. Also be aware that songs included in this preview are cropped and/or edited for preview purposes and come from much longer, developed versions. Most of these clips represent unfinished mixes and non-final renders, where sampled instruments are used. Sampled choir is just temporary!! ;) If and when you hear a sampled solo vocal, that solo is either currently being recorded by a live vocalist (Aubrey Ashburn), or it has already been recorded but simply not included in the preview. Also, the preview has been encoded at 96kbps to preserve the integrity of the rewards already claimed by those who've pledged in amounts corresponding to early preview access and/or a physical copy of the finished product.